


O'er Plains and Hills and Stormy Seas

by AndIMustMask



Category: Homestuck
Genre: I promise, but not sad though, dumb AU idea I had, semi-post-apocalyptic, suggestions wanted!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 21:57:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/997393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndIMustMask/pseuds/AndIMustMask
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically:<br/>-Humans went into--and quite swiftly out of--WW3 and blasted themselves to shit (~85% of world population wiped out),<br/>-Trolls had a huge space-battle (unrelated to the humans) with a currently unnamed thing and got blasted to shit (~6 million remaining),<br/>-The latter (crash-) landed and hunkered down with the former too messed up from the war to do much about it. The world’s kinda shitty for everyone, but this’ll be a relatively happy story, I promise.</p><p>Think fallout meets the wild west, with aliens and psychic powers, but not as gritty or dark.</p><p>pairings are unknown at the moment, and POV will be jumping between the cast.</p><p>[CURRENTLY ON HIATUS]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jade: Educate the Readers

**Author's Note:**

> Still a work-in-progress, so chapters are likely to change or get extended later. 
> 
> Also this thing is in need of a name, so suggestions would be appreciated.

It’d been forty years since the end of the war, and thirty-eight since They arrived. Alternians, they called themselves, though most people just got by calling them ‘Trolls’. Had earth not been already reeling from an almost planet-shattering war, and the the alternian armada not been decimated, humans and trolls would have fought tooth and nail and likely landed in a situation akin to their current one. 

As it stood, they simply landed and set about settling in to recoup their losses and lick their wounds, with the human nations, scattered as they were, being powerless to stop them.

Though, things were hardly simple for the alternians. From the descriptions of their homeworld, the species was adapted to an atmosphere with a much greater oxygen content (among other things), if the sizes of their fauna were to be believed. It took years of work for them to be able to even leave their ships without suits or breathing apparatus, and more still for their "sea dwellers" to adjust to the water--the oceans are still currently too polluted to live in.

There were also health problems for both sides to contend with. Alternians were completely unadapted to earth’s host of microbial life, and they inadvertently brought a few illnesses of their own with them. Humans and trolls alike lost a great many people before anything could be done, since human medicine had wildly different effects on alternian biology, and alternians generally didn’t practise medicine--those who were weak or gravely injured were killed for the betterment of the species.

Beyond that, alternian society was in turmoil. With their numbers so greatly reduced from the war, it would crumble under the weight of it’s own self-inflicted losses--especially with no brooding caverns in place to help bolster their numbers. The loss of Her Imperious Condescension in the final battle only made things worse. Factions rose and splintered from each other, bringing them to the brink of civil war. 

Humans intervened, not blah yet another war to blah blah planet. After months of blah blah blah blah, blah treaties blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

blah blah blah blah blah blah integration blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah strife blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah racism blah blah blah blah blah blah blah troll rights activists blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah religious organizations blah blah blah blah hemo-caste blah blah blah.

Sigh. You’ve heard this documentary-esque reel almost a dozen times already, with each viewing more boring than the previous. Then again there isn’t much else that’s new to watch at your home until the trade ships from the mainland come by. Especially those you can get things like new clothes from or spare parts for your projects from. You hope the weather stays clear enough for them to keep on schedule, or else it’ll be just you and Bec here alone for another few months. Again.

Not that you mind, of course, you’re quite used to living on your own. It’s just so _nice_ talking to real people, instead of the ones in movies you play on your grandpa’s old projector. The letters help too--you were so surprised when you actually got a reply to the letter you sent out, doubly so that they still lived there!

You’d found the address on a letter in the attic after your grandpa had passed away, apparently it was from his (and yours, you supposed) family. Since then you’d kept in contact when you could get the ships to carry them to the mainland, and learned more about them.

It had turned out that grandpa’s sister was no longer among the living, but her son had stayed there and opened a general store in the area. He had a son named John about her age who she wrote to more often than not, and through him she’d been introduced to some pen-pals that he’d picked up himself; a boy named Dave with an odd sense of humor and a love of music, and a girl named Rose who was very mysterious about things, but great fun to talk with in her spooky way. 

You didn’t get letters from them often, since Dave was nowhere near the coast, and Rose apparently lived across the entire mainland from you. You usually send letters for all of them to John, who sends them out with his.

The most recent letter you’d received was from John, who’d been telling you all sorts of things about the new friends he’d met since he started working at his father’s shop. You really wished you could be there too, meeting new people and just hanging out, but this island has been your home for as long as you could remember, and you’re not sure you’re ready to leave all the memories you’ve made here behind.


	2. John: Be the Store-Runner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we follow John through a regular encounter at Dad's general store.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick note on human/alternian language before we start: humans speak the various earth languages they know, and trolls speak alternian. While they can learn what each others languages mean, the two species' vocal bits aren't really able to speak them very well (so while a human might be able to voice something close to an alternian phrase, it would sound mangled and half-done to an alternian, since the human generally cant hit the proper pitches required). This leads to some odd discrepancies between the two, and a fair amount of what's said on either end tends to be lost in translation. That said, with a little guesswork and body language, conversations are possible.
> 
> Oddly, none of these problems seem to appear on the written side of things--the two races found that alternian and english writing are startlingly similar at their core, so both took to learning the other. This means a good deal of diplomatic meetings between the two tend to have both parties across the room from each other typing into teleprompters for the other to read.

You are the best cashier, It's you. Were your father not in the back he’d likely give you a clap on the shoulder and tell you how proud of you he was of your efforts and progress here, as he’s done a few times today already. 

Thankfully your monologue is interrupted with the small jingle of the little bell above the door--Dad had it installed at your request, since every self-respecting business in the wasteland had to have one, even you knew that.

You looked to the gleaming countertop you couldn’t seem to stop wiping when people came in--looking every bit the part of a newly-hired cashier you’d find in a movie (It helped that this was literally the case, minus the movie part), to hear a man striding in, grumbling too loudly to himself to ignore but to quietly to really catch what he was complaining about.

With a smile you look up to see who you expected, Karkat. He was a troll who’d stopped into this little town with a few more settlers (also alternian for the most part), their camp set up a little outside the town proper.

“Hey karkat, what can I do for you today?”, your question deepening his ever-present scowl as he turned his eyes to the racks of goods behind you.

He stood a little shorter than yourself, not counting the wide-brimmed hat (you’re sure your father could name it were he out here, he’d made a hobby of that) that made up the difference, with holes cut out of it for his horns and his tousled black hair poking out underneath. The only grey skin you could see was his face and hands, the rest obscured by his black shirt, grey jeans, and work boots, all bleached lighter by the sun. His neck was covered by a bright red handkerchief scarf and he wore an honest-to-goodness leather duster, like a sheriff in an old western flick. 

The scarf was embroidered with pairs of grey swirled symbols, and when you first asked where he got it he’d told you it was ‘None of your fucking business, you feculent shithole’, as well as a longer string of insults that you simply had to chuckle at, which only made him angrier. You’d found a lot of amusement in riling him up in the few days he and his band had been here so far.

His angry searching complete, he pointed to the stack of jarred preserves and replied with “Get me container of the fuzzy-orange-plant sludge, if it wouldn’t break your flimsy human arms to do so. In fact, I’ll have it regardless of--no, ESPECIALLY if it would.” 

It took a second to figure what he meant before you settled on ‘peaches’ and held up one from the stack with a raised eyebrow, “This?”

“I indeed asked for that, oh great overlord of observation. Now if you’ll bring it over here I can pay for it and leave this rickety building before it blows over and rids the world of a paragon of masculinity. And a squishy human.” He drums his fingers on the counter as you bring it over. 

“That’ll be three dollars and fifty cents, Mr. Paragon of masculinity.” You smile brightly and hand the jar across the counter to him and he fishes out the necessary funds to pay for it. After a few seconds of counting and re-counting, he slaps them on the counter and turns to leave. 

As he reaches the door, he stops suddenly, “I’ll also have one of those sweetened grain loaves from the back too.” He quickly added, “Without the little flaky ones on it!”

Since you father had taken up baking, the honey bread he made had been an absolute hit with both locals and travelers alike, though you’re not sure why Karkat would buy one; trolls generally didn’t take too well to wheat and oats and such. 

With a shrug you turned and ducked under the bar, heading to the half-door that led to the kitchen where your father was bustling here and there with trays of rolls headed into or out of the oven that dominated the far side of the room.

Leaning slightly on the lip-slash-countertop set into the lower half of the door, you call back “Did you get that?”

Your father gives a patient nod and set the tray he was carrying onto a side table, crossing the room to cut a section of wax paper from the roll and then crossing again to slide a loaf of bread from the pan onto it, setting it on the counter to pour the honey overtop of it before wrapping it neatly. He turned and set the bundle on the door-counter for you to take before returning to the unattended tray.

You duck back under the bar and bring the bundle over the counter, placing it there and waiting for Karkat to fish the two dollars to pay for it out of his pocket. Once he successfully does so, you trade them and give him a wave as he leaves the store, the little bell jingling as he does.

You must say you’re quite enjoying this job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am terrible at karkat lines, since original and lengthy insults aren't exactly my forte. This chapter isn't really meant as shipping bait for john/karkat, more just john being a happy guy--though you're free to interpret it as you want. Suggestions appreciated!


	3. Nepeta, What in blazes are you doing?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which karkat is saddled with over three hundred pounds of eviscerated flesh, and doesn't even complain.

Well that’s a silly question, you’re on the hunt! You’ve been stalking your purrey most of the afternoon, and though it eluded you inside one of the businesses, you were soon able to take up the chase again when he left with purrcels in tow a few minutes later. You continue your purrsuit on the rooftops--you’re furry lucky the humans built their hives so densely for such a small collective, it allows you to sneak right along the tops of them. 

There's purrlenty of things to hide behind if you think you’re spotted as well. As he nears the plains at the edge of town, you realize you need to hurry if you’re going to catch him; with nothing but patchy grass and sickly bushes between here and the temporary cloth hives you’re all staying in, you’re pawsitive you won’t be able to tail him without being seen.

Your quarry turns back, peering at the roofline. You quickly duck aside behind a set of chimneys. A few tense seconds pass before he whirls on his heel and continues his surly trudge to the edge of town, muttering to himself.

You let out the breath you were holding and take up the chase again, ducking over a short divider between two buildings. As he gets closer to the boundary you find yourself quickening your pace, still keeping your movements smooth as you glide across the rooftops with nary a sound aside from the light crunching of the small rocks there--you wonder why humans keep them there, but that can wait. 

You check his pace and increase your speed again; if you’re going to catch him, it’s going to be a close thing.

Making your way over a few more buildings you hear a creak a half-second before your foot punches through the rusted tin paneling--someone had a wraparound awning that followed a side road. In your haste you hadn’t noticed and the yowl you let out hadn’t helped in your little stealthy game. Sure enough, he bounds into your view looking worried until he spots you on the overhang. 

There he was, Karkat Vantas, the self-appointed leader of your little group of misfits. While you’re sure your moirail would object to seeing that label on one so low in caste, he follows Karkat’s (very loud) “suggestions” the same as everyone else does. You feel a shameful blush creep up your neck--why did this kind of thing always happen? Every time you try to impress him you ended up bungling it like a witless kitten and making a fool of yourself!

His expression changes from barely-contained rage to disgruntled exasperation to a deep scowl so quickly you have to stifle a giggle. Quite unsuccessfully it seems, since his brow furrows even further and he does that (adorable) spiny squeakbeast thing: ducking his head a fraction and raising his shoulders oh-so-slightly, like bracing for you to attack him or something.

With little else to do, you give him a timid wave. _THAT_ finally sets him off. 

“LESS THAN TWO DAYS IN THE WOODS AND OUR AUTISTIC CATGIRL HAS FINALLY TAKEN THAT LAST LEAP OF THE SICKENINGLY NARROW PRECIPICE INTO THE CITY OF MAGGOTS IN THE KINGDOM OF SHITHIVES.” taking a breath to continue, he finally notices your cargo; you had set out earlier yesterday to hunt in the woods further south of the settlement and were quite pleased with your catch: this morning you’d managed to bring down an adult horned hoofbeast and two of it’s smaller young, as well as a hopbeast and two smaller wingbeasts--they weren’t too large, but you supposed they would make due for a snack (or a gift). They were all tied to a frame and carried on your back while you made your way to camp. 

You also gathered a small basket of berries and roots for trading with the humans here, though the former might not have survived the fall.

“OH GOD, YOU’RE WEARING A SATCHEL OF CARCASSES AND TRAIPSING ACROSS THE HIVETOPS OF THE HUMANS. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY’RE GOING TO DO WHEN THEY FIND A TRAIL OF VISCERA LEADING STRAIGHT OVER TO OUR LOVELY LODGINGS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING DEADLANDS. THEY’RE GOING TO THROW A CELEBRATION IN OUR HONOR AND DROP TO THEIR SQUISHY KNEES IN REVERENCE. WE’LL BE WASTELAND ROYALTY FOR WHATEVER THE HELL THAT’S WORTH. THAT WAS SARCASM IF YOU HADN’T PICKED THAT UP ALREADY, SO GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE BEFORE THEY START REACHING FOR THEIR BALLISTIC PROPULSION DEVICES AND WE GET OURSELVES CULLED FOR DAMAGING THEIR PROPERTY.” You're fairly certain that most town had heard his tirade to begin with (though with how fast he's speaking, you're not sure if they'd catch all of the alternian he was hurling at you), and you’re still amazed at his respiratory bladder capacity even after all the time you’ve been traveling with him. 

He had been looking for, found, and set a ladder up to the roof a short way away from where you were stuck during his rant. After some work you get your foot free and slowly crawl over to it, wary of other weak points in the thin metal. You look up to find him at the top of the ladder with his hand out, “Give me that thing before you fall through the roof completely and we get in even more shit.”

Un-shouldering the pack, you gingerly pass it over to him. He puts over a shoulder--careful not to overbalance and fall--and makes his way down to wait for you at the bottom. When you swing over onto the ladder you feel a sharp pain in your leg. You must’ve turned an ankle when you fell through, or while pulling free from the awning. 

You make your way down and join Karkat at the bottom, where he nods slightly and turns to set off towards camp. He takes a few steps forward before stopping and crooking his arm at you. Dammit, he’d noticed. You curse your lameness again and take it, leaning on him to take the weight off your leg.

It was this attitude that had drawn you to him, since for all his bluster and flailing about, he couldn’t bring himself to just leave someone in need, even if it was stupid and he would end up beating himself up about it later.

It’s what had compelled him to warn you guys about the mudslide before you all had decided to cross the river, which would have swept you all away or buried you alive. It had been what had prompted him to tag along in the first place, seeing just how lost your group was, with Sollux and Equius looking after Aradia, while Kanaya fretted over everyone’s safety and supplies, and no-one really getting anywhere.

With a sigh the two of you made your way back to camp, to be met with the others greeting you and your moirail sweeping you off to lie down and recover, despite your repeated assurances that you were fine, citing that ‘The mighty huntress isn’t even inconvenienced by such a thing’. It was only afterward that you realized that Karkat had carried the frame and a good deal of your weight, as well as his own things, and hadn’t even grumbled about it or your (stupid stupid dumb) injury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notice how the cat puns and troll terminology sorta petered off after a while? That's my fault, since I suck at them. Still in search of an editor!


	4. Rose: Trawl the unknowable depths for guidance.

You would, but unfortunately you are still in the process of procuring the necessary supplies and reagents for such a ritual.

You’re currently kneeling in a mostly bare patch of dirt, tending the few herbs you could actually get to grow this far north. It’s a shame that most of those you need tend to grow in warmer (and less chemical-blasted) soil.

Another person might call it a garden, but only after taking a moment to see if there were a lesser word for it (which would be “allotment”, but you digress). It’s a little five-by-eight rectangle a few feet from the back of your house, surrounded by wooden posts and wrapped in chicken wire and cloth. 

The posts on the back side (away from the house) were taller, to keep the canvas roof at an angle when you had it up during the times it would snow.

People who knew you in town (and beyond) would balk at the thought of you pulling weeds, with dirt on your knees and wearing shabby boots, but here you were.

You’d started it as a hobby three years ago, when you noticed your progress in the library in your home--your mother had a sizeable collection, but you’d managed to wade through about eighty percent of them in your fourteen years at that point--it would only be a few years more until they ran out if you kept your current pace, even with the occasional addition you buy, trade, or order in town. 

The enclosure took about week to finish, and you’d been quite proud of yourself when it was completed and the seeds you’d planted had started to grow.

All that aside, you collect a few sprigs here and there for the rite you’d be performing this evening (if all went well, you still need to get ahold of more ginseng root), and pull an errant weed that had decided to grace you with it’s presence. Supplies in tow, you head back into house to deposit the materials in a small cupboard in your pantry. You then went up to your room to retrieve your pack and wallet, returning to the entryway for your heavier coats and comfortable walking shoes, since it would be a good walk to the nearest town.

After steeling yourself for the cold, you lay your hand on the doorknob only for a knock to sound from the other side. You open it to a surprised Vriska (she wasn’t expecting so prompt a response, it seems), and you debate whether her sense of timing is amazing or horrible.

“Hello, Vriska. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” You feel the corner of your mouth pinch slightly, despite your usual mask. 

“Oh.” The troll took a moment to brush her hair off a shoulder and compose herself, “I was expecting you to take your sweet time answering, as usual.”

“Yes, well it seems we’re both in luck today, as I was heading out to town.” It was no small effort to avoid adding ‘now what do you want?’. You don’t have time for her today, since she could take precious time getting to the point through all her preening and posturing, and you’d very much like to get to town and back home before it snows.

She caught your tone anyway. “It’s been so loooooooong since we’ve seen each other, lalonde. You should be a little happier to see me.” She flips the other side of her hair, continuing, “I’ve even been so helpful playing messenger for fussyfangs.” She produced a brown package with a flick of her wrist--likely taking it from whatever storage space she had it in. 

The Alternians had devised a type of extra-dimensional storage system they referred to as a ‘sylladex’ from before they had reached earth. It seemed useful for the most part, but tended to have rather odd rules for use; such as solving puzzles to retrieve the stored items, or only being able to retrieve the object when they stumble across the appropriate key for that object’s lock. 

The trolls were also very keen on having it for themselves, with the how’s and why’s of the technology being one of their society’s strictest secrets. It had only been a few years since humans had gotten ahold of an unclaimed one for study--part of a trade agreement of some sort, if you remember correctly.

She shoves the parcel at you with a smirk that you decline to return, and you place the gift on a side table. You turn back to the door to find Vriska passing you in the hall--inviting herself in, as usual.

She pauses a moment to survey the living room, before pulling the throw blanket and spare cushions from the couch, tossing them into a pile in front of the fireplace and flopping onto it. “Aren’t you going to open that? I went through soooooooo much effort to bring it to you.”

You’re surprised that she didn’t simply open it herself--she was definitely the type to do so, but after having met the head of the post office in town, you know there would be horrible, terrible repercussions to those who sullied the good name of the postal service.

You consider waiting just to spite her, but you’re rather interested in the contents as well. “So, how is Kanaya faring? I heard she had arrived in Oregon.” You grab the package, beginning to pry apart the neat seams where the paper was taped over the box.

“She’s somewhere in Washington now, from what I was told. It still amazes me that a pushover like her got it into her head to just pack up and walk allllllll the way across the country.”

A pang of guilt hits you, “I’ve no idea why.” You look up from the package to find vriska gone from the pile.

“So this is your human-lusus?” She was standing at the mantle, a picture of your mother in her hands.

“She was.” The cold feeling that had shot down your spine had settled in your stomach, “Now, if you could put that back?”

She gave a short grunt and placed it back--askew of course, turning to stalk into the kitchen.

You start to follow her, fearing for your kitchen, before the room jars violently and you hit the floor, the light dimming to nothing.

You feel something touch your leg.

As you begin to wake, you find yourself in darkness. You start to wonder if you’d gone blind before you hear it; a keening wail of in the distance, building slowly. When you had first heard it all those years before, you had assumed it to be a whale-song, only so much greater, and far more terrible. Behind you, another, different song joins it.

As the two begin to build further, closer to you, a flurry of images are forced into your mind--snow, mountains, dense forests, great fields bending in the wind, barren wasteland swirling with heat, a city blasted almost to dust, and then another, and more still, coming too fast for you to grasp.

 **YOU MUST GO.** Boomed the first voice, too loud, even inside your mind. It shook the entire space encompassing you with awful noise--too many voices speaking at once in languages you've never heard or wish to hear again.

 **ANSWER THE WITCH’S CALL.** The second added immediately, not waiting for you to recover.

 **SHE BECKONS FOR YOU, _OUR_ SEER.** There is almost a ghost of tenderness in the voice, still rattling your body to pieces while you cower.

 **TWELVE HUNDRED DA-NAS YOU MUST TRAVEL** \--The earlier images rush through your mind all at once again, and you clutch your head from the pain. The two continue:

\-- **TO THE WATER, AND THEN THE TEMPLE.** The second voice finishes the first’s sentence.

 **YOU MUST MEET WITH THE** \--A tremor wracks you. Several images flash in your mind, a girl standing on a beach, tanned from the sun as she watches someone in the water-- **WITCH.**

 **THE PRINCESS** \--another, like the first but faster, hits you; long hair, a small frame rocketing through the water, deep and dark-- **WAITS WITH HER.**

The two continue assailing you with more images and words, though you cannot understand them, slipping between languages past and those yet to be. You hear rushing in the distance, like water down a drain multiplied countless times and a pulling sensation meets you.

You’re squeezed downward, far too-tight, pulled faster, ever faster towards… something. The rushing water becomes a screech, and you feel the fabric of space around you tear, snapping you violently back to yourself.

You wake up.


	5. Chapter 5

Kanaya: Greet the Day

You wake the same way you do most every morning; suddenly, and with a jolt. 

You’ve been told by Karkat before that your manner of sleeping is “FUCKING CREEPY”, since you apparently sleep quite deeply and stilly for a troll--so much so that when he first joined your little caravan, he woke you up on several occasions out of concern that you had actually died (not that he would admit as much, the silly wiggler). 

You sit up, taking in the morning’s light on this still-strange world. The sun was dimmer than Alternia’s, and farther away, meaning that travel during the daylight hours was both possible and even enjoyable for some. You make your rounds of the temporary communal hivestem you and the others have set up--the others were nocturnal for the most part, with the exception of sollux, who tended to trade sleep to watch over aradia, or to sit at the edge of the fire and stare into it for hours. The other would be Karkat, who treated sleep like much everything else: with suspicion and vocal distaste.

You stop by the other’s rings and check on them. Nepeta was sleeping well, sprawled across her pile of furs, under her new horned hoofbeast pelt (Equius’ suggestion, fretting over her as usual). The swelling on her ankle had gone down a few days back, and she was back to slinking around with her usual energy.

So closely adjacent as to almost share a wall, Equius’ “tent” was filled with scrap and machinery for his various projects, as usual (Karkat was shocked at how much of it there was and the logistics for travel it implied, until Equius demonstrated that he was more than capable of _pulling his own weight_ , as it were). You spy him in his pile curled into a tight ball, muscles taut. He sleeps almost as still as yourself, though his is borne more from habit and fear of his own strength (damaging things _or people_ while rolling over or thrashing in his sleep) than your natural inclination.

You find karkat at the campfire, sitting up but hunched over. You start a greeting before you hear a soft snore from his throat. You pull a sheet around him--carefully, since you’ve found he dislikes waking up being constricted from what little sleep he gets, and wakes exceptionally easily.

Predictably, Sollux is both still awake and in Aradia’s tent, brow furrowed and in deep thought.

“Sollux.” 

He doesn’t answer. “Sollux, you should get some sleep. I’ll be here until you’re finished.”

“GA you know I--”

 _“Sollux Captor.”_ Your tone makes him shut up. “She will still be here when you wake up.” He flinches slightly but you continue, gentler; “You know none of us would let anything happen to her.”

After a moment the troll sighs, shoulders drooping as he stands from his chair to leave the block. He hesitates next to you for a vascular pumpbeat before making some decision and leaving, hopefully to follow your advice.

From there it’s more of your usual routine: Checking Aradia’s pulse (weak, but steady), giving her a once-over for ticks and other parasites that may have infiltrated the temporary hivestem during travel or otherwise, since the lot of you had already experienced an incident with “headlice” from a human settlement some months back (which you dealt with swiftly and with extreme prejudice when discovered, baldness be damned--you’d needed to cut it anyway, and it has thankfully grown back rather quickly), since you’d like to avoid such a thing in the future.

After that you go about cleaning her up; making sure the blockflap was tightly closed and secured, of course. It’s a formality within this group, but you’d still like to preserve her modesty at least somewhat--especially since you’re not in a quadrant with her.

Finishing with her ablutions you maneuver her into a change of clothes, setting the old ones aside for the wash after laying her back down gently. You check the time outside. Equius should wake soon, giving you a chance to head into town for more supplies before resuming your shift.

Sure enough, about thirty earth minutes later a hoarse voice drifts into the tent:

“Maryam.” 

\- - - - - - - - - -

Sollux: Remember

Your first conscious thoughts after the post-stasis haze and nausea were of the safety of the troll in the adjacent block, which you realize isn’t exactly the norm for your species.

You send out the smallest psionic pulse you can manage without a crushing headache, probing the block to take inventory. Going by how yours is arranged, you find hers to be identical; one desk with a console, a sitting alcove, a cocoon with sopor, and a half-walled section set aside as an ablution block.

Some block entrance tampering later and you’re in, gathering her up from her slumped position in the stasis pod, urgency overriding the initial shock of the whole _nudity_ thing. 

You prop her up with your mind while you get the aqueous dispersal system to the right temperature, then carefully set her under it as you scurry across the room, gathering clothes and arranging her things from your sylladex as if she’d unpacked. It was only after this that you realized you were still both naked as the day you hatched and you were tracking slime all through her block.

All considered, you’re quite lucky that Alternians take a more “Do It Yourself” approach to stasis recovery; since it allowed you to make sure that AA wasn’t investigated or disturbed after the landing, and able to explain her unresponsiveness as temporary shock from stasis--it was a common enough malady to not be a cullable offense.

That she was--is. _IS_ \--your moirail gave you certain privileges to speak for her once the guardemolishers began their rounds, and you set about keeping her safe immediately. The remnants of the alternian fleet landed on this planet approximately ten sweeps ago, only deigning to deactivate the stasis pods once they were certain it was hospitable for trollkind. That it had taken so long was quite telling.

You spent the next three sweeps between a combination of acclimatization therapy, schoolfeeding on 'earth customs and language' (you have no idea how the humans' squawk tubes don't burst from their fleshy pan stalks in disgust), and tracking down the few acquaintances you had in the fleet to watch over AA for the scant hours you were forced to sleep when your useless twiggy body couldn't handle it anymore.

Thankfully the ship was roughly arranged by hemocaste (and sectioned to jettison the 'less essential' crew in the case of emergency), so it was a piece of grubcake to find them.

Hilariously CT and his moirail AC were on the same ship with you--CT had pulled some strings to have you and AA stationed on an upper-caste vessel by virtue of being powerful psionics, but you hadn’t expected it to be the same ship. Though you were basically around as emergency Spare Parts if the ship’s helmsman was taken out of commission (which would ruin everything if it actually happened), it was more secure so you accepted. CT being creepy about how you were _'finally accepting the proper station (as a living battery in constant agony for the rest of your artificially extended life) befitting your caste'_ made you want to punch him, but you bore with it (and you would probably shatter your prong in the attempt).

Things got very tense whenever someone got too suspicious, or were feeling sadistic or power-drunk and attempted to cull AA regardless of your ~~excuses~~ explanations. You had to fight _four_ guardemolishers during those three sweeps--one of which was to the death, and then her pale and flushed quadrantmates in the ensuing and completely predictable revenge feud. After people realized that you were in fact hot shit and capable of atomizing them and the block behind them when pressed they backed off a bit, and after AC caught wind of your trouble (you’re still an idiot for not asking for help), your issues with them evaporated entirely, no doubt CT posturing or pulling the highblood card. You almost considered thanking him.

There was a brief scare when a section of the drone containment failed and a dozen of them broke out and began culling trolls left right and center, thinking that it was time for the mother grub to collect. They were put down before getting near your section, but you got a kick out of seeing people (those that weren’t shitting themselves) throwing themselves at each other as soon as the the drone breakout was announced over the intercom. Unfortunately the ensuing increase in security and maintenance suddenly had you conscripted to help monitor the systems for any future failures, and retroactively rescinded any fleeting thoughts of thanks for one Equius Zahhak when you found that _he_ was the one who pointed out that you knew your way around software.

Of course the ship interface is completely different than your rig back home-- on the ship you had to open panels and literally stick your hands into the mess of organic cabling, which then _stuck itself into your flesh, which hurt like a bitch_ to just use your nerves for input. ~~It was eerie how easily you took to it~~ It was eerie how easily you took to it. You like to think you’re just that badass. 

You _don’t_ like to think about the helmsman, who you can feel in the ship’s internal bio-network _she was a brownblood, thoughts a quiet but ever-present psionic whisper skittering through your nerves as you worked, like a ghost. She doesn’t really think at all at this point, higher functions largely turned off out of basic self-preservation. She was barely eight sweeps old when they dropped her in after the previous helmsman died of shock during the battle--you briefly scanned the video logs before closing them in horror one afternoon. She didn’t scream or cry, slowly following the guardemolishers to the holding block and then the dissectechnicians until she was suited up and mid-fall into the bonding vat as the post-stasis shock started to wear off. When she landed, the ship set to work preparing the new host, feelers lashing around until they found purchase, then digging in. She screamed for an eternity--with her lungs until they were Integrated, then in her head when the ship began to administer painkillers and stimulants to better face the battle still raging outside._ It’s not really in you to worry about others outside of AA, especially when there’s nothing you can do, you tell yourself.

Then you were introduced CT’s _project_. He initially pitched it as a theoretical design for a drone replacement; no need for organic ones that can flip their shit at any time and are a bitch to preserve and transport if you can build a mechanical solution to the same problem. He thought about incorporating some of the biomechanical components and techniques used in making the imperial fleet’s ships now that he’d had a chance to examine them up close, rather than simple robotics. You told him that it was hardly the time to think about that, since you’re not even sure any matriorbs survived among the fleet through the combat and ensuing crashes. He pressed you about it and eventually relented after seeing some of his initial designs. You had to admit that CT had a grasp of hardware that you would almost call respectable, but his thoughts on the organics end were as blunt and grubfisted as the troll himself.

The pair of you went back and forth over design choices, and after the _sixth_ argument over the frond joint mounts, AC told CT to stop working on it before she makes him.

You didn’t know that he’d actually taken the designs further until you found him _in AA’s block_ with a worried AC and slipping a band over AA’s thinkpan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still on hiatus, but another batch old snippets and thought I'd patch up and post'em, rather than let them continue to collect dust.

**Author's Note:**

> My first actual work posted here, be as kind or as brutal as you like! Particularly about spelling, possible better wordings, and other mistakes you see (I feel I'm using too many commas, personally).
> 
> If you'd like to see a character doing something or other, feel free to suggest it in the comments--it helps get my thinking parts moving.


End file.
